Guest post by: Marcia Yudkin

Writing sales copy for a new or to-be-relaunched product takes a lot of energy and concentration. When you finish that first draft, take a rest. Then go back to what you’ve written with this sales copy checklist, which outlines the eight most frequent corrections and improvements I make on copy given to me by clients or students.

1. Pronouns. Do you have a preponderance of “we” or “I” and very little “you”? Wherever possible, change pronouns to “you,” which comes across as more captivating and relevant to the reader than “I” or “we.” In many cases, this seemingly mechanical rewording task forces you to ask yourself, “Why should the reader care about this?” or “What does this mean for customers?” That’s great, because shoppers and information seekers are looking for what’s meaningful to them, not for a monologue about the company.

2. Verb tense. Hunt for places where you used future-tense verbs (“will ____”) and change them wherever you can to present tense. This conveys more confidence and has a stronger impact. For example, change “Before leaving, we will check all pipe connections to make sure they are tight” to “Before leaving, we check all pipe connections and make sure they are tight” or even better, “Before leaving, we make sure all pipe connections are tight.”

3. Extra verbiage. Now find all the spots where your writing takes the long way around, and make your choice of words crisper and more direct. Get rid of the extra helper verb in “Together, we work to create reachable goals,” for instance, changing it to “Together, we create reachable goals.” Instead of “In almost every case, executives who have the intention of fostering teamwork do not know the best methods of getting optimal results,” write “Usually, executives who want to foster teamwork don’t know the most powerful techniques,” or even better, “Few executives know the most powerful teamwork techniques.”

4. Unnecessary sentiments. Wherever you said things like “It goes without saying that…” or “When we say X, it’s not just words,” either express the idea in a stronger, more interesting way or leave it out. Remember: If it truly goes without saying, then don’t say it!

5. Sentence variety. Look at the length and types of sentences in your copy. Do they mostly have a simple, short “subject, verb, object” pattern? If so, combine some sentences and sprinkle in longer sentences starting with a subordinating word like “when,” “because” or “through.” Are most of your sentences long and complicated? If so, make some of them short and stark: “This works.” “Not any longer.” “Benefits sell.” By helping the copy to flow, sentence variety keeps the reader reading.

6. Bulleted lists. Bullets organize points for fast, easy skimming. You can make bullets even easier to read quickly by adding short, boldface headers to the beginning of the bullets. The same goes for numbered lists – as in this article, where each point starts with a summary of the topic in one to three words.

7. Company focus. Never assume that you can say something once and have the reader keep it constantly in mind! Suppose the copy you’ve written describes a service for chefs. Although many companies provide this service, only this company specializes in providing this service for chefs. Instead of making this point just once, drive it home repeatedly by adding the word “chefs” again and again throughout the copy: “For chefs…”; “When chefs…”; “Chefs find that…”; and so on. This drumbeat of specialization also helps attract search engine traffic.

8. Call to action. Most copywriters know that you need to ask for a response to get a response, by ending any piece of copy with a call to action, such as “Call today to start a free, no-obligation discussion of your needs” or “Order your Wonder Widget now.” But on a multi-page web site, I usually see a call to action missing on most of the pages. Probably people are thinking that visitors take a certain sequenced path through the site, getting eventually to the page where they’ve placed the call to action. That’s not how people engage with web sites, though. To prompt action, end every page on a web site with a call to action.

Although many other factors also contribute to the power and success of copy, the neglected ones above have a surprisingly strong impact on readers when consistently applied. They create lean, lively, relevant writing. Practice these techniques and enjoy a more vigorous response!

About The Author:
Copywriting mentor/author Marcia Yudkin has been coaching copywriters since 1997. Check out her weekly ezine on creative marketing, Marketing Minute (http://www.yudkin.com/marksynd.htm ). Learn more about her home-study course on essential principles of no-hype copywriting: http://www.yudkin.com/copycourse.htm.

Article source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/writing/article_1481.shtml

Additional Writing Resources:

• Make Money From Home – Real Jobs You Can Do by Telecommuting
• Create Multiple Articles from Just One
• How to Write Your Own Ebook in 7 Days
• Freelance Writing Jobs

Guest post by: Tom Aaron

The Greek word pleonasm is the use of unnecessary words. Pleonastic words are unnecessary words. Strunk and White are the first pleonists that we know. Their small text outlines the basic elements in writing.

Have you read Strunk and White‘s “Elements of Style”? In the book, one of the points that Strunk and White make is to delete unnecessary words. They argue that deleting the unnecessary words and using fewer words creates stronger writing, that communicates with more impact.

The above paragraph fails to follow Strunk and White’s advice. The following sentence does: Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style” commands us to delete unnecessary words, strengthening our writing. This sentence provides all the information in the wordy paragraph above. Nothing is missing.

In the ideal sentence, every word is necessary. Looking back at the final sentence in the second paragraph above, we see that it adds nothing. To improve our writing, we need to learn to delete such sentences.

We human beings are often naturally wordy. Ideal sentences do not flow from the tips of our fingers through the keyboard and on to the screen. Strong writing, writing without unnecessary words, emerges through rewriting.

Here are three examples of words that are often unnecessary:

1. It is: This empty ‘it’ does not carry any information. ‘There is’ and ‘there are’ are also often unnecessary.

2. The book was written by Mark Twain: The passive uses more words. Change the sentence to Mark Twain wrote the book. The writing is shorter and stronger.

3. Use verbs instead of nouns. Compare these two sentences:

He took up a collection for charity.

He collected money for charity.

The second sentence uses two words less and provides more information. Read both sentences aloud to feel the power of the second sentence compared to the first.

Strunk and White provide writers a path to powerful writing. They write as follows:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

To improve your writing, read Strunk and White again and again. Try to follow their advice. Take comfort in the fact that they make the same errors we do. Did you spot the unnecessary “in the fact” above? This adds no information. Delete. Strunk and White tell us that they have the same problem. Vigorous writing demands time. Read Strunk and White again and again, put in the time, and improve your writing.

About The Author:
You can find Aaron Language Services on the Web at http://www.aaronlanguage.com/ . We provide translation from Japanese to other European languages and back to Japanese, edit English and other European languages, and offer online English coaching to a primarily Japanese client base. If you can’t read Japanese, you can always reach us via our personnel page.

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/writing/article_1635.shtml

Image: sxc.hu.

Additional Writing Resources:

• Make Money From Home – Real Jobs You Can Do by Telecommuting
• Create Multiple Articles from Just One
• How to Write Your Own Ebook in 7 Days
• Freelance Writing Jobs